success steps to - daily blender 3d updates the web bonus scene fi les and fi nished walk...
TRANSCRIPT
ON THE WEB● Bonus scene fi les and fi nished walk animation www.3dworldmag.com
FACTFILE
FORBlender
DIFFICULTYIntermediate / Advanced
TIME TAKENOne day
ON THE CD• Full-size screenshots• Blend fi le for Proog• Textures• Blend fi les for stages
2,15, 21 and 26
ALSO REQUIREDMore supporting fi les can be found on our website
Turn a simple walk cycle into a stroll with style! Improve your character animation in our Blender masterclass, which makes use of genuine rigs from the movie Elephants Dream, provided on the CD BY BASSAM KURDALI
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ON THE CD● Blender 2.41 (see note in introduction about version 2.42)SEE PAGE 82
successsteps to
Walk cycles are one of the staples of 3D character animation. Yet it’s all too easy to end up with bland, robotic movements. In this tutorial,
you will learn how to create a walk with personality, keyframing and refi ning a basic movement cycle, then layering secondary animations over the top.
For this, we will use Blender’s NLA Editor (Nonlinear
Animation Editor). It works just like a video editor, but using
animation ‘strips’ instead of video clips. Each strip represents
instances of an action that can be moved, scaled in time or
layered on top of other strips. This allows you to create an
action that contains one walking cycle, while the strip itself
contains as many cycles as are required for your character to
walk along the path you have assigned to it. The repetitive
nature of the cycling can be offset by using additive action
strips to alter the motion, or by adding other strips to layer
different actions on top of the walk.
In the tutorial, we’ll be using Proog, the lead character in
the world’s fi rst open source animated fi lm, Elephants Dream.
First, we’ll keyframe a basic walk cycle and make the action
loop properly, then put him on a path and add some actions and
layer animations on top of his walk. Finally, we’ll look at some
of the extra cloth animation controls the character rig contains.
Don’t worry too much about Proog’s coat until the very last step
of the tutorial – to look good, it needs some hand tweaking.
The walkthrough is intended for readers who already have
some familiarity with both Blender and the basic concepts
of animating a walk cycle. If you get stuck, refer to the
annotated screenshots on the CD. The disc also contains a set
of numbered scene fi les that will enable you to pick up the
tutorial again at the corresponding steps, and more are available
for download from www.3dworldmag.com/stoppress.
The Proog model itself is the genuine rigged character
from the movie, and is available under a Creative Commons
attribution licence, so it can be used for any project you like.
Most of the tutorial can be completed in Blender 2.41,
which is included on the disc. However, some of the advanced
steps require Blender 2.42, which should be a free public
download from www.blender.org by the time you read this.
Bassam Kurdali is a freelance animator. He recently fi nished work as Director/Animation Director on Elephants Dreamwww.freefactory.org
BLENDER
Animating better walk cycles | TUTORIALS
August 2006 3D WORLD | 055054 | 3D WORLD August 2006